Andreas Winter

GXL: toward a standard exchange format

This paper describes ongoing work toward the development of a standard software exchange format (SEF), for exchanging information among tools that analyze computer programs. A particular exchange format called GXL (Graph Exchange Language) is proposed. GXL can be viewed as a merger of well known formats (e.g. GraX, PROGRES, RPA, RSF and TA) for exchanging typed, attributed, directed graphs. By using XML as the notation, GXL offers a scalable and adaptable means to facilitate interoperability of reengineering tools.

An Overview of the GXL Graph Exchange Language

GXL (Graph eXchange Language) is designed to be a standard exchange format for graph-based tools. GXL is defined as an XML sublanguage, which offers support for exchanging instance graphs together with their appropriate schema information in a uniform format. Formally, GXL is based on typed, attributed, ordered directed graphs, which are extended by concepts to support representing hypergraphs and hierarchical graphs. Using this general graph model, GXL offers a versatile support for exchanging nearly all kinds of graphs.This report intends to give a short overview on the main features of GXL.

GXL: a graph-based standard exchange format for reengineering

GXL (Graph eXchange Language) is an XML-based standard exchange format for sharing data between tools. Formally, GXL represents typed, attributed, directed, ordered graphs which are extended to represent hypergraphs and hierarchical graphs. This flexible data model can be used for object-relational data and a wide variety of graphs. An advantage of GXL is that it can be used to exchange instance graphs together with their corresponding schema information in a uniform format, i.e. using a common document type specification. This paper describes GXL and shows how GXL is used to provide interoperability of graph-based tools. GXL has been ratified by reengineering and graph transformation research communities and is being considered for adoption by other communities.

Querying as an enabling technology in software reengineering

It is argued that different kinds of reengineering technologies can be based on querying. Several reengineering technologies are presented as being integrated into a technically oriented reengineering taxonomy. The usefulness of querying is pointed out with respect to these reengineering technologies. To impose querying as a base technology in reengineering, examples are given with respect to the EER/GRAL approach to conceptual modeling and implementation. This approach is presented, together with GReQL as its query part. The different reengineering technologies are finally reviewed in the context of the GReQL query facility.

Exchanging Graphs with GXL

GXL (Graph eXchange Language) is designed to be a standard data exchange format for graph-based tools. GXL is defined as an XML sublanguage, which offers support for exchanging instance graphs together with their appropriate schema information in a uniform format. Formally, GXL is based on typed, attributed, directed, ordered graphs which are extended by concepts to represent hypergraphs and hierarchical graphs. Using this general graph model, GXL offers a versatile support for exchanging nearly all kinds of graphs.

GraX-an interchange format for reengineering tools

Current research in software reengineering offers a great amount of tools specialized on certain reengineering tasks. The definition of a powerful common interchange format is a key issue to provide interoperability between these tools. This paper discusses aspects of data interchange formats for exchanging reengineering related data. It proposes a graph-based format to exchange both application specific concepts and data by XML documents.

GUPRO - Generic Understanding of Programs An Overview

Abstract GUPRO is an integrated workbench to support program understanding of heterogenous software systems on arbitrary levels of granularity. GUPRO can be adapted to specific needs by an appropriate conceptual model of the target software. GUPRO is based on graph-technology. It heavily relies on graph querying and graph algorithms. Source code is extracted into a graph repository which can be viewed by an integrated querying and browsing facility. For C-like languages GUPRO browsing includesa complete treatment of preprocessor facilities. This paper summarizes the work done on GUPRO during the last seven years.

Strategic information management plans: the basis for systematic information management in hospitals

Information management in hospitals is a complex task. In order to reduce complexity, we distinguish strategic, tactical, and operational information management. This is essential, because each of these information management levels views hospital information systems from different perspectives, and therefore uses other methods and tools. Since all these management activities deal only in part with computers, but mainly with human beings and their social behavior, we define a hospital information system as a sociotechnical subsystem of a hospital. Without proper strategic planning it would be a matter of chance, if a hospital information system would fulfil the information strategies goals. In order to support strategic planning and to reduce efforts for creating strategic plans, we propose a practicable structure.

Program comprehension in multi-language systems

This paper presents an approach to program comprehension in multi-language systems. Such systems are characterized by a high amount of source codes in various languages for programming, database definition and job control. Coping with those systems requires the references crossing the language boundaries to be analyzed. Using the EER/GRAL approach to graph-based conceptual modeling, models representing relevant aspects of single language are built and integrated into a common conceptual model. Since conceptual modeling focusses on specific problems, the integrated model presented here is especially tailored to multi-language aspects. Software systems are parsed and represented according to this conceptual model and queried by using a powerful graph query mechanism. This allows multi-language cross references to be easily retrieved. The multi-language conceptual model and the query facilities have been developed in cooperation with the maintenance programmers at an insurance company within the GUPRO project.

Graph Based Modeling and Implementation with EER / GRAL

This paper gives a cohesive approach to modeling and implementation with graphs. This approach uses extended entity relationship (EER) diagrams supplemented with the Z-like constraint language GRAL. Due to the foundation of EER/GRAL on Z a common formal basis exists. EER/GRAL descriptions give conceptual models which can be implemented in a seamless manner by efficient data structures using the GraLab graph library.